Thursday, May 17, 2007

Food is a difficult issue for lesbians. The assumption that we are all vegetarian, or even macrobiotic, can lead to some awful meals cooked for us by heterosexuals. A US book, to be published later this year, is set to make matters even more complicated.The Butch Cookbook, edited by "two butches and a femme" - Lee Lynch, Sue Hardesty and Nel Ward - is a collection of recipes "for the butch on her own, or the butch cooking for a femme who doesn't cook or is not in the mood". (The terms "butch" and "femme" to describe lesbians are old-fashioned, but there still exists a thriving subculture that celebrates the old ways.)

If canned shit can be art, why can't gourmet food be similarly elevated? Actually, there is a reason why, but it's not as obvious as Spanish art critics appear to think. The critic of El Pais choked on his morning churros at the news that Ferran Adria, chef- proprietor of the celebrated Catalan restaurant El Bulli, has been invited to participate in the Documenta art show in Kassel, Germany, this summer. He must have spent decades with his head in a bowl of Guernica stew (an entirely black mixture of beans and meat - never order a dish because it sounds like a painting) to find this in any way surprising.

Beetroot. The root of the beet. Beta vulgaris. Doesn't exactly resonate with romance, does it? But actually, since Roman times beetroot has been considered a potent aphrodisiac. Murals featuring beetroot have been found on the walls of Pompeii's brothels, and seeds and other traces uncovered in the excavations there (insert your own Vesuvius eruption gag here).The plant's aphrodisiac qualities have been attributed to high levels of the mineral boron, which is thought to play a key role in the production of human sex hormones. So forget your oysters and your ginseng, beetroot is the true food of Aphrodite.

Wednesday, May 16, 2007

If Elizabeth David opened our eyes to the delights of Mediterranean food, Elisabeth Luard put it firmly on the table. As Britain's most venerable cookery writer is honoured by her peers, Richard Ehrlich explains her magic ingredients - and introduces recipes from her latest book.

Supermarkets have traditionally ignored the needs of ethnic-minority customers. Now, though, they are increasingly filling their shelves with juniper sausages, golabki and pickling mango. Humayun Hussain takes a trip down the aisles

It is not very fashionable to be excited about supermarkets - and if golabki, flaki, poppyseed bread or juniper sausage feature highly on your shopping list, traditionally there has been very little to be excited about. Supermarkets rarely stack their shelves full of your favourite tripe soup or cabbage dish. Or, rather, they didn't use to.Last September, Tesco and Sainsbury's decided it was time to cater to the estimated 600,000 Poles living in the UK (and with a disposal income of £4bn a year, you can see why). Five months after the pilot was launched, Tesco announced that Polish food was the fastest-growing "ethnic" food range in the UK, and now Asda, Morrisons and Waitrose are also improving their ranges, with food from other east European countries in the pipeline.

In the daily barrage of conflicting health advice, one theme stands out - eat a Mediterranean diet, and you will live a longer, healthier life. The latest addition to a list that includes reductions in childhood asthma, hay fever, and Alzheimer's is a 12-year study from the US which claims that eating the Mediterranean way can halve the risk of serious lung disease.But 21 different countries border the Mediterranean - so where exactly is this fabled diet to be found? Greece? Italy? Lebanon? Minoan Crete? Paul Gayler, executive chef at the Lanesborough Hotel in London and author of the book Mediterranean Cook, declines to be specific. If he had to choose one typical country with a typical diet? "I suppose Italy." Then he qualifies it. "Spain and Italy. Or southern France."

Monday, May 14, 2007

Perhaps there was a sense that the major battles facing Britain's vegetarians had been won. Veterans recall the fight for better labelling along with the quest for menu choices that didn't begin and end with ambiguous lentil bake.Yesterday, 200 years after the Reverend William Cowherd first publicly advanced the principle of abstinence from flesh-eating, senior figures in the vegetarian movement found themselves rallying the troops for one more skirmish.On May 1, Masterfoods began using animal products in famous chocolate bars such as the Mars Bar, Bounty, Snickers, Twix and Milky Way. The taint also affects Maltesers and Minstrels, which have traces of whey - a product of cheesemaking which itself involves the use of rennet, a chemical from calves' stomachs. The recipe change also applies to the popular ice cream versions of the confectionery bars.

What on earth are chardonnay-flavoured crisps from Yorkshire doing in Catalonia? It doesn't take much to destroy a myth: just a bizarre object in an equally unlikely setting. Let's do that setting first. One of my favourite shops in all the world nestles under a sandstone arch in the small walled village of Ullastret, 20 miles from Girona in Spain. Basically, it's a butcher's. The meat grows fat in the fields at the back: from sty to sausage in two easy stages. But, since this is the only shop around, they do bread, veg and sundry staffs of rural life as well.

Thursday, May 10, 2007

Is there a more versatile vegetable than the humble broad bean? Not only does it work brilliantly in risottos, pasta, stews, soups, mash, salsa and salads but - as that great gourmand Hannibal Lector reminds us - it also goes perfectly with Chianti. When dried, broad beans are more of a winter staple - Nigel Slater has some tips here - but early on in the season, when they are tiny and tender, they can be plucked from their skins and eaten raw. Which is presumably how Mr Lector prefers them.

Tuesday, May 08, 2007

Parents are being advised by experts not to give their children food containing certain additives until the results of a new study are published.the additives tartrazine (E102), ponceau 4R (E124), sunset yellow (E110), carmoisine (E122), quinoline yellow (E104) and allura red AC (E129)

Sunday, May 06, 2007

A digital photography course with a culinary twist offers holidaymakers a new way to see - and eat - their way around the Vendée. Ian White says cheese in west France.Food and photography are the two great passions in Roger Stowell's life. As a fashion photographer in the early 1970s, Roger worked on the pioneering women's magazine Nova, where he met Caroline Conran. She introduced him to her husband Terence who was having a modest degree of success with a chain of home furnishing shops he'd started up in 1964.Under the Conrans' powerful influence, Roger branched out into food photography and, in 1975, helped Habitat to launch the wok to a young middle-class market eager to move away from the dull image of traditional British cuisine. Since then he has worked regularly for superior glossy magazines as well as shops such as Harrods and Waitrose.

For as long as she can remember, Skye Gyngell's food hero has been Alice Waters, the visionary restaurateur behind Chez Panisse, in California. One recent, nerve-wracking, Sunday she not only got to meet her, but to cook for her.

Thursday, May 03, 2007

Given that rhubarb seems so quintessentially English, you might be surprised to learn that it originates in China and Tibet. It was first imported in the 16th century for its medicinal properties as a purgative. Since the 1880s it has been grown using a method of production known as "forcing" - which sounds decidedly cruel but actually just consists of growing it indoors in the dark and warm. The process was discovered by a careless gardener who left a flowerpot on top of one of his plants, only to find the shoots grew much thinner and were much tastier. In Yorkshire's rhubarb triangle (not a joke, see here if you don't believe me) it is still harvested at night, by candlelight.

Thursday, April 19, 2007

Conventional wisdom tells you that asparagus must be steamed, preferably in an asparagus kettle. Then again conventional wisdom tells you that the asparagus season doesn't start until May, so what does convention know? Asparagus is already appearing in farmers' markets, organic box schemes and shops, presumably another indicator of climate change and our unseasonably warm weather.The most important thing to check when you are buying asparagus is the base of the stalk - that's where the first signs of age will show (and are often disguised by the elastic band holding it together). Look out for dried out or mouldy bits. Small thin stalks are more popular, but they aren't necessarily better - thick ones have more crunch and work better with stronger flavours like cheese.

Wednesday, March 21, 2007

For years gastronomes have trailed around France and Italy in search of delicacies. Now food tours are springing up all over Britain. Bibi van der Zee tries the cheese, beer and pork pies of Leicestershire

Monday, March 19, 2007

What have chip-and-pin bank cards, Jack Johnson, supermarkets espousing environmental causes and the website www.last.fm got in common? Not a lot except that they, and dozens of other items, have been described in the newspapers in recent weeks as "the best thing since sliced bread". This is curious. We live in an age of unprecedented innovation, yet the standard benchmark for judging excellence is not the jet engine or television or the internet, but plain old sliced bread. It is a marvel of viral marketing that this phrase is known all over the world, and it is no surprise that this month saw a key figure in its development recognised. Legislators at Little Rock, Arkansas, passed a resolution honouring Richard Otto Rohwedder, son of the inventor and, as a 13-year-old boy, the person who actually pushed the first loaf through an automated cutter in 1928. Senator Shane Broadway, sponsor of the resolution, observed that it would be "appropriate to recognise his part in history, culture and our society" and added: "All of us could not live without sliced bread." It is possible to disagree with that statement while acknowledging the longevity of the invention. Mr Rohwedder, who died in February aged 92, would have been delighted by a BBC news item pointing out that the freshly baked loaves in supermarkets are now selling for 89p or less, while Warburtons Seeded Batch sliced loaves enjoy premium status, costing up to £1.40p each. This is clearly the best thing for sliced bread since ...

Saturday, March 17, 2007

Thousands of sandwiches were recalled from schools, hospitals and universities yesterday amid fears they could be contaminated with listeria, a potentially fatal food bug.The Food Standards Agency removed the sandwiches after listeria contamination was found in samples during routine tests carried out on behalf of Ashford local authority in Kent.

Friday, March 16, 2007

The humble pizza has come a long way from its 19th century origins as an oven-baked Neapolitan favourite. But the basic idea remains the same: bread-type base, gooey topping, a sprinkling of black pepper and get stuck in. Thick crust, thin crust, stuffed crust. But never upper crust.Now a New York restaurant has decided to turn the pizza into a culinary marvel by smothering it in caviar and lobster and charging customers $1,000

Thursday, March 15, 2007

The Michelin guide announced yesterday it would publish for the first time in Japan, generating an outburst of culinary chauvinism from the country's chefs, bristling at the prospect of being told how to prepare sushi by French gourmets.The Michelin Guide Tokyo will be the first edition published outside Europe and the US, and the organisation has already dispatched a team of undercover Japanese and European inspectors to assess the top restaurants in the Japanese capital. Although Michelin stressed that restaurants had nothing to fear from the guide, which rates cooking, service and decor, chefs were suspicious. Some suggested that "outsiders" working for the famous bible of gastronomy were not qualified to pontificate on the finer points of such delicacies as raw fish.

A major US-based banana producer is to pay a fine of nearly £13m after admitting it made protection payments to a right-wing Colombian paramilitary group implicated in human rights abuses and cocaine smuggling.In a deal with the US justice department, announced last night, Cincinnati-based Chiquita Brands International pleaded guilty to one charge of conducting business with a terrorist group, agreeing to a fine of $25m.The settlement resolves a lengthy justice department investigation into the company's financial dealings with both right-wing paramilitaries and leftist rebels in Colombia.

Wednesday, March 07, 2007

The man whose company popularised generic new world wines and introduced the high-alcohol-content Thunderbird to generations of British teenagers has died aged 97.Ernest Gallo, the last of the two Gallo brothers to die, co-founded E&J Winery in 1933, building it into the world's second largest wine company.It popularised grape varieties such as burgundy and chardonnay and is credited with creating an international market for Californian wines under the name Ernest and Julio Gallo

Bottled mineral water is now out-selling cola in London, a report reveals today, and health conscious consumers are helping to fuel a continued growth in the soft drinks market, opting increasingly for still products such as water and juices rather than fizzy substitutes.The research by the manufacturer Britvic finds pure juice, "sports" drinks and blended beverages known as smoothies have shown the fastest percentage growth in the take-home sector. And sales of water have risen by 11% to achieve £643m in sales.

Allegra McEvedy, who from today will write a weekly recipe for G2, describes her journey from the River Cafe in London, via Robert De Niro's New York restaurant, to her own chain of award-winning, super-healthy eateries.

Tuesday, March 06, 2007

When the organic pasty squared up against the Big Mac, it was never going to be pretty. In the wake of Prince Charles's recent tirade against the Big Mac, defenders of McDonald's have levelled that the burger in question contains less salt and fat and fewer calories than some of the products in the Prince's Duchy Originals range. One analysis of the brand's Organic Ginger Biscuits gasped that each biscuit is higher in calories than a two-finger KitKat.

Monday, March 05, 2007

SHOPPING for cheese has never been high on my list of romantic things to do. It can be fun, but I'd never thought of it as a bonding experience. Now, however, I'm going to treasure each moment I spend with my husband, mooching around the cheese heaven that is Ian Mellis, or Valvona and Crolla, because I've learned that the simple act of buying...

Sunday, March 04, 2007

Paul Gayler, executive chef at the Lanesborough Hotel, can't get enough of it. And neither, it seems, can the rest of us. It has recently been claimed that there are now more cheeses made in the UK than in France, and it's true that an enormous number of farmhouse varieties are appearing on the market. Sales of goat's cheese are on the increase, and classics such as parmesan and brie are becoming staples to rival cheddar and stilton. This all adds up to a delicious cheeseboard, but Gayler believes that we should be more adventurous. "Cheese's unique characteristics in cooking are too often overlooked," he says. "Why not pair blue cheese with white fish, or cheddar with a lobster bisque? Or use goat's cheese to make a pesto sauce?"

THERE was a time that schoolboys would do almost anything to escape "girly" cooking lessons. But, inspired by celebrity chefs and the rise of foodie culture, there has been a massive increase in boys taking the subject in Scottish classrooms. New figures from the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) reveal a rise of almost 60% in three years in the number of boys taking the vocational courses designed to propel them towards professional kitchens. Old-fashioned home economics - which combined traditional "housewife" skills of cooking and needlework - was revamped in 1999. That, and the rise of role models such as Gordon Ramsay and Jamie Oliver, has given the subject a remarkable boost.

It's 2am, you're in Hong Kong, and you fancy some bacon and eggs. Andy Lynes knows where to find them.A jet-lagged stomach could have you craving raw fish for breakfast in Tokyo or a midnight snack of pad thai in Bangkok. The sign of a truly great city is the opportunity for round-the-clock dining. So, wherever you find yourself awake with an appetite, there will always be somewhere nearby to satisfy your hunger.

Thursday, March 01, 2007

Oh, the modesty of the Swedes. A few weeks into my campaign for table-water sustainability I found myself at Upper Glas (a glorious pun celebrating the removal of the Swedish restaurant Glas from Borough Market to the site of what used to be Lola’s on Upper Street) and demanding, as ever, to know what kind of bottled water they had.

Wednesday, February 28, 2007

'AH!" SAYS the impeccably turned-out French maitre d', taking our coats. "You are the people who asked to see the chef's table, yes?" We confirm that we are. "That is no problem," he says, threading his way through the faux snakeskin chairs to our table as numerous, equally impeccable-looking French waiting staff hover nearby. "You will go after the meal, yes?" Welcome to Abstract Edinburgh, the newest fine-dining restaurant to open its doors in the capital. You will have heard of Abstract. You will probably have heard of the chef's table, too. Most likely you will have heard of them in conjunction with the name Gordon Ramsay, as it was as a result of two visits by the fearsome chef to Abstract's first restaurant in Inverness, for his Channel 4 show Gordon Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares, that both entered the media spotlight.

Just had your vegetable box delivered? Seen those same familiar curly green leaves poking out? Yes, I’m afraid so. More curly kale, and you’ve still got last week’s to get rid of. It’s not a great time of year for homegrown veg, is it? Winter’s root crops are over, and the first flush of spring, with its promise of tender peas, asparagus and even – oh, what exotic joy – broccoli, is still months away. No wonder they call this the hungry gap.One person you won’t find complaining, though, is Chris Molyneux, the brassica king of Lancashire. On his farm near Ormskirk he grows green kale, red kale, Russian kale, black kale – anything with a “k” in it, plus spring greens and Brussels sprouts.To schoolchildren he must seem like the Antichrist, but as we tour his fields, the wind whipping in off the Irish Sea, his passion is infectious. “That’s cavolo nero, or black kale,” he says, pointing to a puckered leaved plant. “It’s got a lovely taste, with a bit of pepperiness to it, but you can see where the frost got to it the other night. That’s the Italians for you – not very hardy. And this,” he says, ripping leaves off another plant, “is red Russian. It doesn’t look so good on the stalk, but it’s the sweetest of the lot.”

Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, the television chef and champion of small producers, is fronting a new offensive against the supermarkets which he portrays as a "bullying" force destroying British food. The Channel 4 presenter will denounce the supermarkets at a public meeting in Westminster tonight and demand new powers to limit their growth.Four campaign groups are behind the event, Supersized Supermarkets: Friends of the Earth, War on Want, ActionAid and the anti-Tesco website Tescopoly. They are asking the public to write to their MPs and the Competition Commissioner to make five demands, ranging from a new consumer watchdog to stronger labour rights.The Commissioner is investigating whether the supermarket groups, which take 72 per cent of grocery spending in the UK, are abusing their dominant position.Campaigners argue that stores harm the environment, diminish local communities and bully suppliers over prices and councils over planning permission.

As if the Middle East didn’t have enough conflicts already, a new one erupted yesterday between the Prince of Wales and the burger. Visiting a medical centre in Abu Dhabi, the Gulf state that has the second highest incidence of diabetes in the world, the Prince suggested that banning McDonald’s could be the key to improving the emirates’ health. The burger chain, which has six outlets in the largest of the United Arab Emirates, immediately sprung to its own defence, suggesting that the organic and environment-loving Prince was out of touch with current burger thinking, particularly in Britain. He was, the company implied, bordering on the ungrateful. Accompanied by the Duchess of Cornwall on his ten-day tour of friendly Gulf states, the Prince was learning about new initiatives to improve Abu Dhabi’s health as he visited the centre backed and largely staffed by Imperial College, London. The royal couple watched a class of children being taught about food choices when the Prince turned to Nadine Tayara, a nutritionist who had put the children through their well-rehearsed paces, and asked: “Have you got anywhere with McDonald’s? Have you tried getting it banned? That’s the key.”

European Union figures released this week make grim reading for British men, 22% of whom, we are told, are obese. But it is Malta that has the dubious honour of heading the league table. Here, a quarter of men are at least 20% over their healthy maximum weight.How can this be possible, you may ask, given the much vaunted Mediterranean diet? The fact is that, apart from olive oil, fish and fresh fruit and vegetables, the typical Maltese meal also includes large amounts of crusty, slightly salty bread. The picture is made worse by big portions at every meal and the fact that most Maltese prefer buffet restaurants where you can fill your plate with portions verging on the obscene. But no one is embarrassed. It is the norm. Quantity rather than quality is what goes down well.

It is unlikely that the Prince of Wales has ever sat at a plastic table in his local McDonald's and tucked into a Big Mac and fries. But yesterday the country's most famous organic farmer did not let his lack of firsthand experience deter him, suggesting that a global ban on the fast food giant was the key to improving children's health.During a tour of a diabetes centre in the United Arab Emirates the prince asked a nutritionist: "Have you got anywhere with McDonald's, have you tried getting it banned? That's the key." A spokeswoman for Clarence House, who was travelling with the prince and Duchess of Cornwall on their 10-day trip, said Prince Charles was simply promoting healthy eating and the "importance of a balanced diet, especially for children".

For a woman trying to conceive, the best prescription could be a knickerbocker glory. It might play havoc with her diet but the old-fashioned confection, made with cream and ice cream, could help her get pregnant, according to a study. Researchers have found that women who drink whole milk and eat full-fat dairy products are more fertile than those who stick to low-fat products. The findings could help explain the growth of infertility in the West as fashion-conscious young women trying to eat healthily and stay slim have shunned full-fat dairy products such as whole milk.Eating two or more servings of low-fat dairy products a day - which could include a portion of cottage cheese and a low-fat yoghurt - increased the risk of infertility due to lack of ovulation by 85 per cent, the researchers found. But women who ate at least one serving of high-fat dairy food a day cut their risk of infertility from this cause by 27 per cent.The more ice cream the women ate the lower was their risk of infertility. Women eating ice cream two or more times a week had a 38 per cent lower risk of infertility than those who consumed ice cream less than once a week. In the US, ice cream is made with full-fat dairy milk. Low-fat versions, sold in Britain as ice-cream, are called sherbet in the United States.The study involved more than 18,000 women aged 24 to 42 who had no history of infertility and had tried to become pregnant between 1991 and 1999. They were part of a larger study of 116,000 women called the Nurses Health Study II in the US.Jorge Chavarro, of the Harvard School of Public Health who led the study published in Human Reproduction, said women wanting to conceive should examine their diet."Women should consider changing low-fat dairy foods for high-fat dairy foods, for instance by swapping skimmed milk for whole milk and eating ice-cream, not low-fat yoghurt," he said.Even substituting one glass of whole milk for skimmed milk a day made a significant difference. The changes should be made without increasing the total amount of saturated fat or calories in the diet by making small adjustments elsewhere. Once pregnancy was achieved it was wise to switch back to a low-fat diet because it was easier to limit the intake of saturated fat and calories.The advice runs counter to official US dietary guidelines, which recommend adults should eat at least three servings a day of low-fat dairy products. Similar advice is issued in the UK.Dietary fat has an impact on hormone levels and this was the most likely explanation for the effect, Dr Chavarro said. Whey proteins added to low-fat milk have been found to have androgenic (male hormone-like) effects in animals which could suppress ovulation. Whole milk and other high-fat dairy products have higher concentrations of oestrogen (the female hormone) which promote ovulation. Dr Chavarro said: "It is possible that the trend to eating more low-fat dairy products in recent decades could have increased infertility rates but more research is needed."Chris Barratt, professor of reproductive medicine at the University of Birmingham, said: "It's a very comprehensive study, and because of the large number of patients you can have some confidence in the results. Diet clearly has a big effect on fertility in both men and women."

Monday, February 26, 2007

The napkins have been pressed; the cutlery polished. In a ballroom off Park Lane, staff are dusting fine bone china, and performing other luxury hotel alternatives to putting up the bunting. The Dorchester is preparing to honour its greatest living son. Anton Mosimann, OBE, boasts a place in history as the man who created the modern hotel kitchen. Arguably, the world's first celebrity chef, he also invented a school of cooking that is now standard restaurant fare, and became one of the first top restaurateurs to share his secrets with the masses via television.Today, he's 60, and some of the world's top foodies have come to London to celebrate with an old-fashioned banquet. Three hundred guests will tuck into an eight-course meal, drink double magnums of vintage plonk, and smoke the finest Havana cigars.You may not have eaten his food, stepped into his discreet Belgravian club, or seen his face adorning a new range of kitchenware. But without Mosimann we would not be living in the era of Jamie, Heston and Gordon.

Situated on a bustling high street in south-west London, Farmers' City Market appears to be just another shop. The only clues to what may lie within are the two white statues of cows. A glimpse inside and it soon becomes clear that this is not your average store.But nor is it your average farmers' market. This is a venture that aims to provide all the quality and reliably sourced food of other farmers' markets but without the draughty surroundings and temporary stalls. More ambitiously, the three founders, Jana Satchi, Stephen Wilkinson and George Beach, say they want to redefine food shopping.

Just seven years ago the banana farmers of the Caribbean Island of St Lucia were hanging up their machetes and ready to turn their steep hillsides back to forest. UK subsidies for their fruit were doomed, they couldn't compete with giant "dollar" bananas from South American plantations, and a dying industry seemed to provide only back-breaking work for scant reward.Today, the island where bananas are not so much a crop but a way of life is celebrating. Just about every St Lucian banana sold for export now commands a premium price and European supermarkets are queuing for more. Money is going into run-down schools, the banana sheds are being repaired and the farmers can scarcely believe the turn round in their fortunes.

As a marketing promotion, it seemed like a splendid idea: hide a coin worth $10,000 in a well-known place, and tantalise treasure hunters by offering the finder a chance to win up to another $1m. But even the most well intentioned public relations plans sometimes come a cropper, and yesterday Cadbury Schweppes was forced to apologise for its "tasteless" stunt.Choosing an historic graveyard to hide the coin proved the undoing of the idea; a cemetery that contains some of America's greatest revolutionary heroes.

Anorexia is seen as a 'women's problem'. But eating disorders in men are widespread and on the increase. Tom Dodds, 19, tells how his quest for a 'manly' body became an obsession that almost killed him

Sunday, February 25, 2007

The Independent on Sunday has teamed up with the Glenfiddich Food and Drink Awards to launch a search for a talented new restaurant critic. Winning a Glenfiddich is regarded as the highest accolade in the food and drink industry. Every year, it celebrates the best in food and drink writing and broadcasting by giving out 10 highly sought-after gongs. Categories include food writer, drink writer, TV presenter and restaurant critic. This new prize was introduced for the first time in The Sunday Review last year and was enormously successful. One of the runners-up, Andrew Shanahan, submitted his first-ever restaurant review, which helped him land a top job as food and drink editor of Time Out Manchester and a stint at reviewing restaurants for the Metro newspaper in the North West.

AS A rule, I have usually avoided non-alcoholic alternatives to wine. Why pretend to be drinking something when you're not? The expansive range of fruit juices, concentrates and cordials are all very well for a hot summer's day or a garden party, but when it comes to accompanying a steak or a poached salmon I would rather stick to the hard stuff. February in my household is dominated by cups of tea and water as I fidget my way through a month of abstinence. It's a practice I was introduced to by the great Edward Demery, chairman of Justerini & Brooks, who for three blissfully happy years was my boss. Demery's theory was that January is just far too busy to abstain. February, by contrast, is relatively quiet and short - a whole 12 days fewer than Lent. "A lot of my friends give up in January," Demery explained, "but it's 31 days long! Go for February instead, Wills, but beware the leap years."

Saturday, February 24, 2007

Just had your vegetable box delivered? Seen those same familiar curly green leaves poking out? Yes, I’m afraid so. More curly kale, and you’ve still got last week’s to get rid of. It’s not a great time of year for homegrown veg, is it? Winter’s root crops are over, and the first flush of spring, with its promise of tender peas, asparagus and even – oh, what exotic joy – broccoli, is still months away. No wonder they call this the hungry gap.One person you won’t find complaining, though, is Chris Molyneux, the brassica king of Lancashire. On his farm near Ormskirk he grows green kale, red kale, Russian kale, black kale – anything with a “k” in it, plus spring greens and Brussels sprouts.To schoolchildren he must seem like the Antichrist, but as we tour his fields, the wind whipping in off the Irish Sea, his passion is infectious. “That’s cavolo nero, or black kale,” he says, pointing to a puckered leaved plant. “It’s got a lovely taste, with a bit of pepperiness to it, but you can see where the frost got to it the other night. That’s the Italians for you – not very hardy. And this,” he says, ripping leaves off another plant, “is red Russian. It doesn’t look so good on the stalk, but it’s the sweetest of the lot.”

Sugar has come in for its fare share of demonising recently, and it's true most of us eat too much. But beyond the issue of the quantity of sugar we consume, is its quality. Most of the sugar used in the food industry is refined white sugar, which comes from sugar beet, whereas the kind preferred by chefs and aficionados is unrefined, which comes from sugar cane. How is sugar refined?In the case of beet, which is grown in the UK and Europe, the beet is sliced, cleaned and soaked to produce juice, which is filtered and boiled to form a syrup and crystallise. The crystals — always white, though they may be coloured brown later — are separated from the liquid, which is known as molasses. Beet molasses is too bitter for human consumption.

Friday, February 23, 2007

Anomalies contained in new rules limiting junk food advertisements during children’s programmes mean that cheese and porridge cannot be promoted during Bob the Builder but fast-food restaurants have free rein to advertise during Dancing on Ice or The X Factor. The rules, published yesterday by Ofcom, the broadcast regulator, have left parents, health campaigners, food manufacturers and the advertising industry all unhappy. The consumer watchdog Which? predicted a rush of advertisements for oven chips, chicken nuggets and sugary breakfast cereals during early-evening family viewing. There is concern that while characters such as Shrek or Postman Pat cannot be used to endorse food products on TV, companies can continue to use brand characters, such as Tony the Tiger on Kellogg’s Frosties.

The disappearance of hummus from the shelves after a hygiene problem at a plant supplying supermarkets has revealed the depth of popular addiction to this appealing paste. Its taste, at once earthy and refreshing, now has a large place in the British palate. Its grainy texture offers what food chemists call "mouthfeel" at its best. It is as moreish as chocolate or ice cream, yet its healthy ingredients induce a feeling of virtue not available with those of other foodstuffs. Who could shake a stick at sesame seeds, chickpeas, olive oil, cumin, garlic and lemon juice? And who expects to wake up to find that the British Medical Journal has identified hummus as the cause of some feared disease?In praise of ... hummus

LeaderFriday February 23, 2007The Guardian

The disappearance of hummus from the shelves after a hygiene problem at a plant supplying supermarkets has revealed the depth of popular addiction to this appealing paste. Its taste, at once earthy and refreshing, now has a large place in the British palate. Its grainy texture offers what food chemists call "mouthfeel" at its best. It is as moreish as chocolate or ice cream, yet its healthy ingredients induce a feeling of virtue not available with those of other foodstuffs. Who could shake a stick at sesame seeds, chickpeas, olive oil, cumin, garlic and lemon juice? And who expects to wake up to find that the British Medical Journal has identified hummus as the cause of some feared disease?It is best made at home, but bought versions are not to be despised. In the Middle East it is a dip about which there are many schools of thought. The supersmooth hummus of Beirut is different from that of Damascus, lighter than that of Cairo, and a world away from the rougher product of Cypriot kitchens, while the Israelis tend to skimp on the olive oil. Apart from using good oil, the most important difference is to do with the chickpea skins, which must be rigorously rubbed off, or else grittiness ensues.The process through which hummus, pesto and salsa have become essential lubricants of British life, displacing the old trinity of salad cream, tomato ketchup and brown sauce, has been a beneficial one. But while pesto divides and salsa inflames, hummus soothes. May it soon return to the aisles.

Thursday, February 22, 2007

It has been lampooned as a stultifying snapshot of France's most pretentious places to eat - a testosterone-charged arena of stress-ridden alpha males catering to conservative businessmen on expense accounts. But the French Michelin guide, the influential "little red book" of gastronomy, appeared to take a step into the modern age yesterday by awarding its top three-star accolade to the first female chef in more than 50 years.Anne-Sophie Pic, 37 - a petite, softly spoken and revered chef who has headed the kitchen at La Maison Pic in the south-eastern French town of Valence for more than a decade - is only the fourth woman to win the top award. A specialist in fish, her signature dishes include sea bass caught in coastal waters and steamed over wakame kelp, served with gillardeau oyster bonbons, cucumber chutney and vodka and lemon butter sauce. But although she came late to haute cuisine, the chef, who prefers to mix textures and flavours rather than radically alter ingredients, comes from a gastronomic dynasty. Both her grandfather, famous for his crayfish gratin, and father had three stars in their time.

Wednesday, February 21, 2007

Britain produces more mozzarella than Italy and air-dried ham to rival Parma's. On the way are olives and single-estate tea.Talk to a foodie about food miles these days and you will probably get an enthusiastic response taking in local suppliers, independent traders and the simply super organic veg box they get from a little man just outside the M25. It has become cool to think and act local. But what about all that French cheese and charcuterie, that Umbrian olive oil and single-estate Darjeeling? In the dark days of our culinary past we learned to love the imported foods that tasted so much better than our own and now, in order to be green, it seems we may have to learn to live without them.

Buying organic food grown locally may sometimes be more damaging to the environment than nipping down to the supermarket for produce that has been driven hundreds of miles across the country, a new study suggests. Research looking at the environmental impact of food from farm to the plate and beyond suggests that locally-grown food may not be as environmentally friendly as it’s said to be. Similarly, long-distance transportation may not deserve the demonisation it has received for the emissions of carbon dioxide it generates. However, scientists questioned the growing use of aircraft to carry foods around the world. The findings, from a study commissioned by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to guide policy on which types of food production and consumption to encourage, prompted a furious response from the Soil Association, which promotes and certifies organic food. The report concludes that so little is known about the overall environmental impact of any food produce that it is impossible to say which are the most environmentally friendly. But while the merits of some organic products were recognised by the study, researchers pointed out that others cause more damage than non-organic items.

Tuesday, February 20, 2007

Marco Pierre White was unveiled as the new star of TV show Hell's Kitchen today - and immediately laid into fellow chef Jamie Oliver. White dismissed Oliver's school dinners campaign as a "cynical" publicity stunt which has failed to improve children's food. He also stoked up his simmering feud with Gordon Ramsay, saying: "He doesn't enrich my life in any way." And he slammed celebrity chefs who put their names to expensive restaurants but never cook there. White will put 10 celebrities through their paces in the new series of ITV1 reality show Hell's Kitchen, to be broadcast later in the year.

Saturday, February 17, 2007

Supermarkets across the country emptied their shelves of hummus yesterday after salmonella was found in dips from one of the UK's main suppliers.The recall was initiated on Wednesday by Marks & Spencer after routine testing at its supplier discovered salmonella contamination in two hummus products. M&S said there had been no complaints or reports of illness from customers.But the company's supplier, London-based Katsouris, a unit of Icelandic food group Bakkavor, also decided to pull its hummus from Sainsbury's, Somerfield, Tesco, Waitrose and the Co-op.

Friday, February 16, 2007

A study of 9,000 British families suggests that women who eat seafood during pregnancy could have brainier children. The research suggests that those who avoid fish or do not eat enough of it risk depriving their unborn children of important nutrients that are needed to help brain development.The advice contradicts previous warnings by health experts suggesting pregnant women should limit the amount of fish they consume because of potentially dangerous pollutants in seafood.

It contains more iron than spinach, more vitamin C than oranges and more calcium than milk. Watercress may be better known as a decorative garnish, but a study published yesterday said the salad leaf could significantly cut the risk of cancer.The study suggested that eating 85g of watercress a day could inhibit the growth of cancer cells and even kill them. Scientists at Ulster University found that the watercress reduced the damage caused by cancer cells to white blood cells by 22.9%. Watercress also raised levels of antioxidants which absorb so-called "free radicals", molecules which some experts believe damage the body's tissues.

Thursday, February 15, 2007

Industry criticised over controversial new guidelines on fat, salt and sugar

The food industry's new nutrition labelling scheme makes its products look healthier than they really are and is fundamentally flawed, a report published today says.The manufacturers' labelling scheme has been adopted and promoted by at least 21 leading food companies and supermarket groups since January in opposition to the traffic light labelling scheme proposed by the government watchdog the Food Standards Agency.But the new industry labels, which tell shoppers how much sugar, fat and salt products contain as a percentage of their total "guideline daily amount" (GDA), use figures that are "misleading", the National Heart Forum says.

Tuesday, February 13, 2007

Confectionery giant Cadbury is set to be prosecuted under environmental health laws over last year's food scare involving chocolate contaminated with salmonella, the Guardian has learned.The national health alert, in which dozens of people became ill with food poisoning, led to the Birmingham-based manufacturer being forced to withdraw more than 1m bars of chocolate from retailers and loss of consumer confidence in one of Britain's best-known and most valuable brands. The company has since revealed that the scare cost it £30m.Sources close to the investigation have revealed that officials are close to finalising the lengthy and complex process of interviewing and evidence-gathering, and hope to announce a prosecution before the end of this month.The company is expected to face charges of producing food unfit for human consumption. It is also likely to be prosecuted under European laws, accused of failing to tell the authorities in good time about the extent of the problem.

Monday, February 12, 2007

The school meals tsar Prue Leith admits today that she has just three years to convince Britain's seven million schoolchildren to adopt healthy eating habits.

Otherwise, she fears that people will "lose faith" in the campaign to improve school meals.If that happens, nutritional standards in school dinners could slip back to the level of neglect that has dogged the service for the past two decades.The food writer and cookery expert, appointed by the Prime Minister to chair his newly-created School Food Trust, spoke to The Independent as thousands of school dinner ladies prepared to spend the half-term holiday training in the skills needed to deliver the Government's new nutritional standards .The School Food Trust - which is responsible for introducing healthy eating standards in schools - is organising nine regional conferences for school dinner ladies this week, backed by a £15million grant.

For years, 'Dr' Gillian McKeith has used her title to sell TV shows, diet books and herbal sex pills. Now the Advertising Standards Authority has stepped in. Yet the real problem is not what she calls herself, but the mumbo-jumbo she dresses up as scientific fact, says Ben Goldacre.

Gillian McKeith, the You Are What You Eat presenter, has agreed to drop the title Dr from her company's advertising after a complaint to the industry watchdog. She has made millions from book and health food spin-offs, but her credentials have been questioned by some experts.After the Advertising Standards Authority came to the provisional conclusion that the honorific was likely to mislead the public, McKeith Research said it planned to drop it from its advertising, obviating the need for a full investigation. The complaint was brought by a Guardian reader who learned of Ms McKeith's academic credentials from a recent Bad Science column by Ben Goldacre.The self-styled health guru has consistently argued she is entitled to call herself a doctor because of her distance learning PhD in holistic nutrition from the American Holistic College of Nutrition.

Sunday, February 11, 2007

TO ENSURE your dinner à deux goes with a swing, don't go to all the bother (and expense) of preparing a lavish meal for your loved one. Cut straight to the final course. No, not the business in the bedroom - dessert. Research has found that British men get the biggest boost not from traditional aphrodisiacs like oysters and caviare, but from the sweet whiff of apple pie, custard and doughnuts. According to Jill Fullerton-Smith, the Glasgow film-maker behind the BBC series The Truth about Food and the accompanying book (Bloomsbury, £15.99), scientific wisdom maintains that many supposed aphrodisiacs gained their reputation simply by association. "Oysters are reminiscent of vulvas, for example, while carrots and bananas have more than a passing resemblance to sturdy, erect penises," she says. "Similarly, the word avocado comes from an ancient Aztec word for testicle. Virgin Aztec girls were banned from the avocado fields during harvest time because of the provocative appearance of the ripe fruits." Fullerton-Smith drew on the findings of scientists who had researched what happens to men when they inhale the scent of various foods - in particular what happens to the blood flow to the penis. The effects were surprising. For instance, while pumpkin pie and oranges elevated proceedings by 16% and 12% respectively, chocolate resulted in a disappointingly flaccid 3%. The top result - with a whopping 24% rise - came from the aroma of, bizarrely, apple cake. But for those left deflated by the knowledge that a Mars a day only helps you work and rest, Fullerton-Smith has encouraging words. "Chocolate may not have any real aphrodisiac properties, but its melt-in-the-mouth texture makes it a very sensuous food." And the same goes for the likes of strawberries and cream, honey, yoghurt and ice-cream. But don't chuck out the oysters just yet. The molluscs have been found to contain the chemicals D-aspartic acid and NMDA, which encourage the release of testosterone and oestrogen. They also contain a lot of zinc, which is important for male fertility. For assuring a good performance, men need not turn to Viagra. Garlic, nature's equivalent, acts in the same way by encouraging the body to produce nitric oxide, which relaxes muscle tissue in the penis. "This opens up the vessels and increases the flow of blood into it," says Fullerton-Smith. But there's bad news: to get the most from this erotic but pungent food, you must eat at least three cloves a day, preferably raw. So if you want to get close to your lady love, don't forget to chew some parsley afterwards.

Saturday, February 10, 2007

Belinda Richardson on the Valentine's Day gift that offers richly romantic rewards.Whatever the origins of February the 14th, most of us would agree it has become far more than a simple day for exchanging love messages.Box of tricks: chocolate has long been associated with aphrodisiac qualities Now a multi-million pound industry, with an overwhelming number of cards, presents, over-priced red roses and pink teddy bears being sold the world over to celebrate the occasion, the concept of another Valentine's Day understandably makes some of us reach for the proverbial sick bucket.

Thursday, February 08, 2007

IT was way back in the second century AD that the Romans identified oysters as an aphrodisiac, with one satirist describing how wanton women used to down large quantities of them. Ever since oysters have been seen as the food of love, a romantic culinary treat which will send pulses racing and hearts a- fluttering. But according to Dario Pacifici, of catering experts The Devil's Kitchen, the Romans may well have been on to something - oysters really do have the vital ingredients to give men a boost where they need it most. "Oysters are full of life-enhancing minerals such as copper, iron and zinc - critical to male fertility," he says. So how did the Romans know all those centuries ago that oysters contains vital elements for good romantic health?

Wednesday, February 07, 2007

It's hell trying to book a table, chefs and waiters hate serving up lovey-dovey food and restaurateurs see it as an easy way to rake in the cash - no wonder Valentine's is the worst night of the year to dine out, writes Tim Hayward.

Tuesday, February 06, 2007

Not everyone can say they spent a million on a meal. But this weekend a lucky few with deep enough pockets will ascend to a luxurious Bangkok hotel's 65th floor and scale the culinary heights.True, the million in question is 1m Thai Baht. But at around £15,000 a head, not including service charges and tax, that is still the kind of restaurant bill that buys a lot of bragging rights. It also buys some of the world's finest, freshest and most tantalising ingredients specially flown in from 35 cities around the world, accompanied by rare and expensive wines.Preparation of the extravaganza is in the hands of six chefs with three Michelin stars apiece who have also jetted in from their restaurants in France, Italy and Germany, eager to present their signature dishes. No expense has been spared to ensure the 15 gourmands who booked Saturday's one-off dinner will be able to show themselves off as "Epicurean Masters of the World", as the event's title boasts.

Monday, February 05, 2007

One of the largest makers of chocolate bars whose brands include Mars and Snickers is to stop marketing to children younger than 12 by the end of the year. It is the first time a major foodmaker has set out to stop targeting snack foods to such a wide age group. Masterfoods, which also makes Maltesers, Topic, Revel and Twix, said: "We have decided to make an official policy change to a cut-off age of 12 years for all our core products."The measure reflects mounting concerns about the links between advertising and childhood obesity and follows moves by some public authorities to bring in tighter food regulations.The company already has a policy of not advertising to children under six and, earlier this year, said its chocolate bars would display calorie counts on wrappers. A spokesman said the firm had written to Robert Madelin, the European Commission's director-general for health and consumer protection, outlining its new policy.The letter said the policy, which will apply to all advertising, including online, will be adopted by the end of the year.

Thursday, February 01, 2007

Gordon Ramsay once joked that Frank Bruni was so important he was going to have his face printed on the pillows of his waiters. Alas, the efforts of Britain's most famous chef to please the restaurant critic of The New York Times have been dashed. Three months after Ramsay opened his first US restaurant, the London NYC, on 16 November, Bruni has finally delivered his verdict. It was critical and not a little humbling for a chef determined to crack America.Out of a maximum four stars, Bruni awarded the London NYC just two, "very good" - well short of the "excellent" or "extraordinary" to which Ramsay would have aspired. The central failing Bruni identified was the timidity at the "icily" decorated restaurant - the first of three Ramsay eateries in the US.Bruni made much of Ramsay's reputation for being foul-mouthed in his television shows, but he suggested the brashness had not been matched by boldness in the kitchen.In a 1,400-word review, he wrote: "For all his brimstone and bravado, his strategy for taking Manhattan turns out to be a conventional one, built on familiar French ideas and techniques that have been executed with more flair, more consistency and better judgment in restaurants with less vaunted pedigrees."He complained: "Most ingredients are predictable, most flavours polite, most effects muted. "Mr Ramsay may be a bad boy beyond the edges of the plate but in its centre, he's more a goody-two-shoes."

Japan yesterday agreed to cut its quota of Atlantic bluefin tuna by almost a quarter over the next four years, in the latest attempt to save the fish from commercial extinction.Environmental groups said Japan's huge appetite for the raw delicacy is largely to blame for numbers falling to dangerous levels, and warned that growing demand from other countries would increase the threat to world tuna stocks.Japan has agreed to cut its quota by about 23% from 2006 levels to about 2,175 tonnes in 2010. The overall tuna catch in the eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean will fall by about a fifth from 32,000 tonnes to 25,500 tonnes under an agreement reached last autumn by the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas.Conservation groups claimed that the measures did not go far enough, but officials in Japan, which consumes more than half the global bluefin catch, said they would help maintain stocks while avoiding dramatic price rises.

Wednesday, January 31, 2007

When Hari Kunzru started rustling up seaweed salads and sashimi at home, he found that Japanese cookery didn't live up to its forbidding reputation. Here, he indulges his growing obsession with a masterclass from top sushi chef, Nic Watt

Tuesday, January 30, 2007

BIG Brother may be dead for the time being, but long live the celebrity chefs who keep the reality TV ball well and truly rolling. Channel 4 viewers will this week be treated to the first instalment of Jamie Oliver's newest crusade: to find, among four green young chefs, somebody capable of running his or her own restaurant - or, as the publicity puts it, "to transform a rundown rural boozer in Essex into a successful upmarket gastropub". The chefs are not unknown to Jamie, having come through his Fifteen training programme (50 trainees have now graduated from the scheme, which is run by the charitable Fifteen Foundation). Now Jamie's Chef is going to be expected not only to run a kitchen, but, in a massive step-up, to handle front-of-house, source ingredients, pay bills and talk the talk. The day-to-day rigours of being a professional chef responsible for your own - or someone else's - bottom line will be laid bare, a stark warning to anyone with aspirations in this direction: it's no walk in the park.

It was with a vague biliousness that one greeted yesterday's news that dining rooms are back in vogue, thanks to the "Nigella Effect". Apparently the era of the open-plan kitchen-dining room has made way for a return to formal dining. But it was less a recoiling from the prospect of endless hideous dinner parties that instilled the nausea, more the recurrence of those two little words: "Nigella" and "Effect".

Monday, January 29, 2007

Foods containing unnecessary and unhealthy amounts of salt are named and shamed today as Britain's shoppers are urged to boycott potentially dangerous processed foods.The worst offenders include staple items such as bread, crumpets and cereals as well as the popular meat snack Peperami Sticks, which have about 4g of salt per 100g.Consumers are being advised to go for widely available lower-salt alternatives, which are much better for their health, says a national campaign group.

Sunday, January 28, 2007

From a pre-dinner snack to haute cuisine, tapas is now a gourmet choice. Andy Lynes offers a contemporary guide.

In recent years, Spanish tapas have been elevated from a few pre-dinner bites of ham or seafood over a glass of sherry in a bar to the main event of the evening. Even some big-name chefs, many influenced by the unbounded haute cuisine creativity of El Bulli's Ferran Adria, are injecting new life into an old idea. Housed in the Reina Sofia Museum, Arola Madrid, Calle Argumosa, 43, Madrid (00 34 91 467 02 02; arola-madrid.com) offers samples of double Michelin-starred Sergi Arola's contemporary Spanish cuisine, including a version of patatas bravas and Iberian pork loin with manchego, chillies, and pistachio.

Saturday, January 27, 2007

Organic food which is imported to the UK by air could in the future be stripped of its valuable label under proposals put forward yesterday by the country's main organic certification body.The Soil Association said it was concerned about the growing environmental damage caused by greenhouse gas emissions from flights carrying food around the world.The organisation launched a one-year consultation on options ranging from carbon offsetting, labelling produce to specify the "food miles" travelled, and an outright ban on the air-freighting of organic food.

Friday, January 26, 2007

Food imported to the UK by air may be denied the lucrative "organic" label under proposals being put forward today by the Soil Association.The UK's main organic certification body is concerned about the "food miles" involved in importing goods by air, which, environmentalists argue, contribute to global warming.Supermarkets typically charge more for food labelled organic and many customers are increasingly favouring goods which have not been treated with pesticides and other chemicals.

The Michelin man can be a tough creature to love. Pumped up with self-importance, he chomps his way across Europe, applying the same pitiless standards to the simplest and the most lavish restaurants alike. Perhaps most aggravatingly of all, he is French. So many people will shrug their shoulders at the news that his inspectors have this week awarded 122 UK restaurants at least one star in their 2007 guide. They should be celebrating. In 1974, when the guide was relaunched after a long hiatus, there were only 25 - and not one merited more than a single star. The continuing need for Michelin's approval sticks in the throat of a nation whose much-improved food now draws on traditions from across the world. While the star ratings get most of the attention, they represent just one in 20 of all Michelin's recommendations. The introduction of the Bib Gourmand, a nod to restaurants that offer a good three-course meal for less than £28, has helped to dispel the fug of gourmet pretension that still clings to the Michelin brand. (Contrary to myth, the food earns the stars, not the china or the toilets.)

Thursday, January 25, 2007

AS you are probably aware, tonight is Burns Night and some of you will doubtless be dusting off your kilt and dancing shoes in preparation for a night of hearty food, whisky and dancing. Some of you may even have the honour/horror of addressing the haggis or giving the ladies' reply as part of the traditional Burns Supper. This meal is traditionally three courses of cock-a-leekie soup, haggis and cranachan. These days you might find that the experience has been sanitised slightly, with the haggis served as a starter and a more universally enjoyed main course such as chicken or steak to follow, but Burns purists would surely not approve of downgrading the "great chieftain o' the puddin' race". In some areas of the country it's also been known to substitute stovies for the haggis, though how you go about addressing a stovie is surely a mystery. While some of you might not be going the whole tartan hog you can still celebrate the life of the Bard even if it is just at home with your family. It is probably too late to make your own haggis, you will be delighted to hear. Trying to stuff a stomach lining with your own mix of sheep offal and oatmeal is not the most pleasant way to spend an afternoon.

I'M HALFWAY through a phone conversation with Tom Kitchin, chef, restaurateur and rising star of the Scottish food scene, when he interrupts me. "Hang on," he says. "Martin Wishart's on the other line." The phone is put down and I hear him pick up another receiver. Words like "Wonderful... fantastic... couldn't believe it" float down the line, until he finally finishes up with: "Thanks man, that means a lot. Let's have a drink on Saturday." He picks up the phone again. "Sorry 'bout that. Where were we?" The reason for Kitchin's flustered phone manner is that yesterday morning, around 8:30am, the 29-year-old received a call telling him his Leith-based restaurant had won a Michelin star. The award makes him one of the youngest Scots ever to have received the accolade. Even more astoundingly, Kitchin's restaurant (called, not entirely surprisingly, The Kitchin) only opened last June. Given that the Michelin guide is usually in the hands of its publishers by autumn, this is quite an achievement.

Gordon Ramsay added two Michelin stars to his burgeoning empire yesterday as a record number of restaurants in the UK and Ireland were included in the industry's gold-standard guide.The awards, widely regarded as the ultimate culinary accolade, are given to 15 new restaurants in this year's guide, bringing the total in the UK and Ireland to 122.Among those are Ramsay's Petrus restaurant, which was given a second star, and La Noisette which was added to the list for the first time.In the Channel Islands Guernsey boasts a Michelin-starred restaurant for only the second time and Jersey gained a second single-star restaurant.This year's guide editor, Derek Bulmer, said: "More and more chefs are opening in London, so there are more listed than ever. The Channel Islands have also done well."Single Michelin stars were awarded to 13 new establishments. Twelve restaurants were stripped of their single awards. The Waterside Inn and the Fat Duck, both in Bray, Berkshire, and Gordon Ramsay in Chelsea held on to their positions as the UK's only holders of three Michelin stars.The Vineyard at Stockcross near Newbury, Berkshire, identified by Michelin as a "rising star" last year, has now been awarded two-star status.The new single star additions in this year's guide are: La Noisette, Chelsea; Benares, Mayfair; Arbutus, Soho; L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon, Strand & Covent Garden; Seaham Hall, Seaham, Durham; The Abbey, Penzance; The Harrow, Marlborough: Atlantic, Jersey; Christophe, Guernsey; Glenapp Castle, Ballantrae, South Ayrshire; The Kitchin, Edinburgh; The Crown at Whitebook, Monmouth; Chapter One, Dublin.

First it was department stores, then garden centres and bookshops; now it's libraries and even estate agents. It seems you can't go anywhere without being offered a cappuccino and a sofa to enjoy it on. Is Britain turning into one giant cafe?

SUPERMARKET single malts have beaten top-brand distilleries in a taste test by one of the world's leading whisky guides. Tesco's Speyside 12-year-old was given a higher rating than Glenlivet's equivalent, while the store's Islay single malt beat a similar bottle of Bowmore, according to the 2007 Whisky Bible, edited by Jim Murray. The Tesco tipples also scored better than the malts from its rival, Waitrose. Experts said the findings proved choosing the best was a matter of personal taste rather than label-driven snobbery. In the guide book, Tesco's Islay malt is described as "sumptuous and mouth-coating", and Mr Murray notes that it would have been given an even higher score if the colour had been more natural. Bowmore's 12-year-old, which costs up to £10 more than the Tesco bottle but scored four fewer marks out of 100, was said to "reveal greater peaty youth than of old". The Waitrose alternative was described as "head-thumping, unforgiving peat with a lovely salty depth".

THERE are more restaurants in Britain claiming Michelin star status than ever before, with 15 stars added this year. Some 122 establishments from the Channel Islands to Fort William now boast the top honour. In Scotland, the restaurant at Glenapp Castle in Ballantrae, Ayrshire, joins The Kitchin in Edinburgh as a recipient of a new Michelin single star. Graham Cowan, the owner of Glenapp Castle, said: "Being awarded the star was a surprise, but we couldn't be happier. "It is a fantastic award for our head chef, Matt Weedon, and his team, who have proved you can take superb local Ayrshire produce and transform it into Michelin-standard food." The award also caps more than 12 years of hard work by Mr Cowan and his wife, Fay, since buying Glenapp Castle as a virtual ruin in 1994 to transform it into a luxury 17-bedroom hotel. There are now eight restaurants in Scotland with one Michelin star, while Andrew Fairlie at Gleneagles Hotel in Perthshire retains his two stars.

Wednesday, January 24, 2007

MORE GPs should be handing out fish oil supplements to depressed patients instead of turning to drugs, a nutrition expert urged yesterday. Dr Tom Gilhooly, a GP in Glasgow, said his practice now prescribed omega 3 supplements to people with mild to moderate depression, with as many as 60 per cent seeing a major improvement without antidepressants. But he said there was a lack of knowledge about the benefits among GPs. Dr Gilhooly, director of the Centre for Nutritional Studies in Glasgow, also said the higher cost of supplements over antidepressants made health boards loath to let doctors prescribe them. His comments came at a conference in Glasgow looking at food's impact on behaviour.

Tuesday, January 23, 2007

A BARTENDER from the Capital is mixing it with the cream of the world's cocktail makers after being named the best in Britain.David Cordoba, 33, from Leith, beat 15 of the nation's best bartenders, to become UK winner in the International Finlandia Vodka Cup 2007 in London last week after previously winning the Edinburgh heat with his White Reindeer Night cocktail.Mr Cordoba, who works at Bramble Bar in Queen Street, will compete in the international final in Finland on January 30 against national winners from 21 countries. The prize is a holiday in the city of his choice.

Fruit & vegetables At Budgens, I wanted two oranges only and, not seeing any individual ones on display, reluctantly I picked up a bag of six. Some will rot before I get round to eating them all.Chris Turnbull

It is no longer possible to buy ordinary tomatoes loose in our branch of Tesco. You have to buy six in a plastic container. Why has this changed? I don't want them packed in plastic.Alison Sims

Even though cauliflowers are sold almost entirely protected by their green leaves, Tesco insists on putting each one into a plastic bag.Berjis Daver

I recently bought from Waitrose a small head of broccoli, sold loose, weighing just over 300g. Price 48p, weighed by myself. In the adjacent bin was apparently identical broccoli - not organic - shrink-wrapped and priced at £1.47 for 300g, i.e. an extra £1 for the wrapping.Dr Ann Soutter

A couple of weeks ago, I bought a half cucumber from Sainsbury's that had originally been a whole shrink-wrapped cucumber cut in half, and then wrapped again in its own plastic wrapper, therefore wrapping it twice.Marion Marsh

After living in France for four years, I was shocked when I returned to England and found that I couldn't even buy a lettuce in my local supermarket - only pre-packaged, ready washed salad mixes. In France, there is virtually no pre-packaging of fruit and veg.Esther Race

The most recent annoying practice in Sainsbury's - a cauliflower, minus all its outside leaves, encased in a rigid "football" style, transparent, hinged container. It costs about 50p more than an unwrapped one.Jan Huntingdon

Today, I almost walked out of Sainsbury's with a single apple in a large plastic Sainsbury's bag. I took my apple out of the bag and gave it back to the cashier.Jade Beecroft

I've often wondered why Tesco packages sweet potatoes in little black plastic trays with cellophane wrapping. Of all the vegetables, the sweet potato is among those least vulnerable to damage or bruising.Kevin Curtin

Tesco or Marks & Spencer's finest range of fruit and vegetables come on trays with a hard plastic top followed with a second plastic wrapping to encase the tray. It is ridiculous.Allison Burns

Morrisons also sell individual bananas in a plastic tray wrapped in clingfilm. Great campaign!Julie Williams

Ready mealsProducts like hummous, paté, dips and olives have an unnecessary double layer - they often have a cardboard outer sleeve in addition to the plastic container, when this could suffice if it was sealed and had the information printed on the outside.Paula Mills

Shopping in Asda just today, I found a beaut - surplus packaging a-go go. Müller are the culprits and it's their "Müllerice" range. I thought, "blimey, that's a lot of card for six packaged yoghurts" - it's the sheer size of the packaging compared to the size of the yoghurts that struck me.Richard Smith

A low from M&S that I spotted several weeks ago: microwave porridge for one. How sad is that? Homemade porridge takes five minutes to make, is cheap, nourishing, untainted, with estrogen-mimicking chemicals, and creates no waste.Emily van Evera

Tesco wrapping groups of tins in plastic film - if I want four tins of beans I don't need the shop to wrap them for me.Ian Cessford

Occasionally, I buy a takeaway cheeseburger from McDonald's with the intention of eating it immediately. They always put the wrapped burger in a paper bag without asking. The McDonald's is next to a playing field which regularly fills with rubbish from their customers.James Green

Yeo Valley organic yoghurt tubes are in a plastic tray and a cardboard box - just the box would be sufficient. This is quite surprising as normally "organic" companies are more environmentally friendly.Lorraine Harvey

Waitrose frozen fish comes wrapped in sealed clear plastic bags with a re-sealable zip. This is then packed in a box. I often leave the box at the checkout.Philippa Towler

DrinksCarling, Carlsberg and Stella all protect their lager in a tin can. However, if you buy their multi-packs those same cans are further protected in a cardboard box and to protect the box is a covering of plastic.Richard Quinlan

When I go to the Continent, my beers come in bottles that have all been reused. Here, every time I have a beer, the bottle gets smashed, driven around, melted, put back together again and driven to the brewery for refilling. Why can't we just keep re-using the bottles like our friends across the Channel?Jim Bell

Confectionery and breadThe chocolate bars in a Cadbury's Selection Box are wrapped in a protective foil, then a glossy paper wrapper, sat in a moulded plastic tray, before being put in a cardboard box.Jack Downey

A couple of years ago, Mr Kipling started wrapping his cake slices in packs of two, within a pack of six. Exceedingly wasteful...Dawn Preston

Easter eggs - often the box is twice as big as the egg itself, sometimes even bigger.Douglas Chester

I recently went into a café where coffee and cakes were being bought for the office: eight coffees in paper cups put in cardboard containers... eight cakes put in individual paper bags, put in a paper carry bag. How many times in the day does that happen?Rachael Foster

Monday, January 22, 2007

For lovers of Indian food, variety and spice are essential components of a perfect meal. But it appears that the poppadum, a staple accompaniment, can be subject to too much variety — in shape, size, flavour and consistency. It may be crispy, circular and spicy or chewy, plain and square. So now the United Nations food and health agencies are to lay down international standards for how the poppadum can be manufactured. It will join Cheddar cheese and dried shark’s fin on a list of internationally traded food products drawn up by the Codex Committee on Food Additives and Contaminants. Such a listing would give an importer or an individual consumer a basis for legal action if the poppadum in question fell short of Codex standards. The list — also known as the Codex Alimentarius — will specify that poppadums, or papads, should be “thin circular discs” from 5cm (2in) to 25cm in diameter, and between 0.3mm and 1.2mm thick.

It's the nation's first marmalade festival, right in the middle of February, like a whole new kind of solstice. It will be held in the Lake District. Well, come on, where else would you hold a made-up jam-variant solstice? A competition for the best marmalade, which two bishops have already entered, is going to be judged by the WI. Quick! Someone tell Woman's Hour, before the whole thing gets pinched by The Daily Service!

MISAKO Udo's infatuation with Scotch whisky was sparked by a teenage encounter with a White Horse - of the 40 per cent ABV variety - in her native Nagasaki. A few years later, when she arrived in Scotland for the first time, she found to her incredulous disappointment that the pub back home stocked a better range of whiskies than her newly adopted howff in Edinburgh. Twenty years on, this effervescent Japanese tour guide, naturalised Scot and evangelical whisky aficionado is doing her bit for what she regards as our appallingly under-appreciated native spirit. Her book, The Scottish Whisky Distilleries, is a vastly compendious guide to our existing distilleries - not to mention evoking the ghosts of those which sadly are no more. When we meet in (naturally) the Leith rooms of the Scotch Malt Whisky Society, she's delighted to find me nursing a single malt. So many Scots, she argues, simply don't appreciate what she regards as a precious national heritage. "It's a real shame," she says.

Sunday, January 21, 2007

Children who ate healthy school meals instead of packed lunches scored higher marks in tests, were less disruptive and concentrated longer in the classroom.A study involving thousands of pupils and hundreds of parents and schoolteachers has confirmed the theory that transforming a child's diet improves how they learn and behave.Two years after Hull City Council offered free, nutritionally balanced lunches to all young children in primary and special schools, the city is experiencing calmer classrooms, where children are more enthusiastic and more confident socially.

BURNS Night approaches, and with it come the time-honoured rituals of a Burns supper - from the haggis being piped in and drams being drunk in abundance, to the wonderful 'Address to a Haggis' being recited by a bekilted extrovert. But all over the land, less formal Burns suppers will also be taking place, featuring simple dishes such as haggis, neeps and tatties, with or without a toast to the bard. Start your weekend early and cook chicken breasts stuffed with haggis on Thursday, the Bard's birthday, and invite round a few like-minded patriots for a bit of a party. Or just keep it simple and cook for two.

NEVER trust a man, who, when alone in a room with a tea cosy, doesn't try it on his head. This is the code by which Billy Connolly has lived his life, which explains why the madcap funny man is enthroned, like the national treasure he is, in the garden of his Candacraig country seat, crowned with a tea cosy and hugging an exuberant silver teapot on wheels. It's a deliciously witty, surreal image, typical of a chap who drinks several cups of tea a day and enjoys them immensely, despite tea being only his second favourite drink. It's no surprise that the Big Yin's first choice would be alcohol, but unfortunately he's no longer allowed that, since he freely admits that he drank his share all at once, "Not knowing it was supposed to last me a lifetime." Connolly's ideal companion for a cuppa would be God. Should the Almighty be otherwise engaged, he would like to ask Keith Richards or Nelson Mandela round to his Aberdeenshire estate.

... meets the owner of London's newest Swedish restaurantLet's face it. The country that introduced the reliable Volvo and the ever-practical ball bearing hasn't been a major player on the world's culinary stageBut one woman is determined to prove there is more to the Scandinavian country than a smorgasbord of Ikea stores, Abba hits and hackneyed meatball dishes.Anna Mosesson, an aristocratic Swede, has boundless enthusiasm and an earthy sense of humour. She keeps me waiting at her new restaurant, Upper Glas in Islington, while she takes her cocker spaniel home. "He was front-of-house this morning," she says, roaring with laughter.

The sparkling seeds of the pomegranate add an exotic, healthy kick to dishes of every kind.If ever a fruit has a powerful reputation, it is the pomegranate.It was a pomegranate that tempted Persephone in the Underworld, and by eating just four seeds she condemned herself to spending four months a year in hell.In classical and medieval times it was the ultimate symbol of fertility, because of its many seeds and lascivious red interior. Later, it gave its French name - grenade - to an explosive device.More recently, it has been celebrated as a new superfood, packed full of powerful antioxidants. A regular intake of pomegranate juice is also said to guard against hardening of the arteries and slow the growth of prostate cancer.There’s even a suggestion that pregnant women who drink pomegranate juice will help their babies’ brains develop.

Game, it seems, is making a comeback in the supermarkets, and according to the promotional website Game-to-Eat, the market is now worth £38 million.For those who have never indulged in game birds, pheasant (in season until the end of January) is a gentle starting point, one step up from a tasty, free-range chicken — perhaps because the fashion is to hang the birds for two to three days, rather than seven to ten, which creates a much gamier bird. Any shooting of birds, of course, is steeped in controversy.

Burns Night is almost upon us, and every tartan-blooded Scot will be celebrating in traditional manner with noggins of whisky and a steaming haggis while a man in a kilt gets all excited about “the great chieftain o’ the puddin’ race”. (There’s nothing Slade could have taught Robert Burns about the commercial value of a good seasonal tie-in.) For diners at Boisdale, home from home for Celtic expats in London, the night’s celebrations have been stretched into a fortnight, and they’ll be piping in Macsween haggis, wild salmon from the Dunkeld smokery on the Taye, and ribs of 28-day-old Scottish beef right through to next Saturday.Owner Ranald Macdonald is as Scottish as they come. The son of the 23rd Captain and Chief of Clanranald, he’s a descendant of the Macdonald of Boisdale who told Bonnie Prince Charlie to stop all his rabble-rousing nonsense, and the many greats nephew of Flora Macdonald, who helped spirit him away after the Jacobite army was defeated at Culloden in 1746. Ranald also claims kinship with Elvis’s maternal grandmother, which rather pleases his music-loving side.Anyway, he was shocked when he learnt I’d never eaten haggis, and decided to remedy the situation and at the same time introduce me to the new range of rare single malts he has launched with Berry Bros & Rudd. And very fine they both were. The haggis was a revelation, which we decided was probably down to the fact that at Boisdale they roast rather than boil it, and serve it with a very good veal reduction.On the minus side, Ranald rather scuppered the Scottishness of the occasion by declaring that haggis was probably introduced to Britain by the Romans (his forebears would therefore have had to enjoy it as a takeaway from the other side of Hadrian’s wall), and that the national drink of Scotland is no more whisky than it is Irn-Bru.“Essentially, haggis is an unevolved sausage,” he says, “a mix of blood, offal and local cereal stuffed inside a stomach lining. You’ll find versions of it in rural communities throughout Europe.” In most countries that developed into the meatier sausage that we know today. “But in a poor area such as the Highlands, they wouldn’t have had frying pans, or ranges — just a hole in the roof and a pot over a fire — so virtually every­thing you had would be boiled. And that’s how it’s stayed.” And hence, also, the haggis’s frankly medieval appearance.And as for the Scottish love of whisky, that didn’t really come about until the early 19th century, apparently. “No, the real national drink of Scotland is claret,” says Ranald, himself a former wine merchant. “Since the 1600s the English had been stuck with oxidised red wine from Portugal as they were their most important partner in the wool trade. But in Scotland, with our French alliance, we drank claret, and had done since the 14th century. So fond of it were we that by 1616 James VI of Scotland [and James I of England] enacted a bill through Scottish parliament limiting my family to one hogshead of claret a year because he believed that the barbaric behaviour of the clans of the west coast was all down to our inordinate love of red wine. Whisky had been produced since the 15th century, but didn’t really take off until after 1780 when the tax on claret made wine too expensive for most people.”So there we have it, and all from a Scot. So be sure this Thursday to raise a glass — just make sure it’s filled with claret, not scotch.